CHRIS
‘An Open Letter to the Beastie Boys’
Dear Ad-rock, MCA and Mike D,
Firstly, let it be noted that – as it seemed to be the sole intended learning outcome from your recorded output – that I was able to recall, without the aid of Wikipedia, all of your names. These names are so engrained on my mind that I am considering adopting a trio of rescue dogs just so I can name them after you. I am sure you will be pro this.
Secondly, I want to return to my original statement I made at the beginning of this month about what I was expecting from both you and your albums. To be fair, many of my comments centred on my ideas of who would listen to you, particularly that they might, to paraphrase, fall into the ‘jock’, or, to make a British reference, ‘ladz’ category. Sadly, I don’t think you really challenged that, at least not for about the first third of your albums. These albums were littered with dubious slurs, comments about women and more general attitudes that made for some uncomfortable listening, and this marred my listening of these. But, to give you a fair review, I know you have commented on these and the fact these were a long time again in your youth. For this, I salute you.
Now, I want it to be known that ‘Ill Communication’ is brilliant. This was, by far, the highlight of the month for me and I am sure it will receive many more listens in the future. Likewise, Five Boroughs and Hot Sauce were great. I think they are both testament that age was something that brought with it a great improvement in what you were doing.
My major gripe all month, though, has been your editing; namely, the lack of it. I know that creativity really shouldn’t be constrained, but I really think you should have had someone holding you back. In most of your albums there is hidden within it an incredible ep or mini album. In the way Raymond Carver had Gordon Lish, you needed someone who could cut away the fat from the meaty beats and rhymes. Also, much anger has been shed before, but I really think you should have reconsidered The Mix Up. Not got rid of it, but just thought about where, and how, you released it.
I want to finish with an apology. This has been an odd, tiring, and at times stressful month for me. Because of this, I am starting to think this might have blurred my reception to your albums. I think there might be albums – particularly Paul’s Boutique – that I didn’t give my fullest attention to. So, sorry. Be assured that I will revisit some of these albums in the future.
I don’t take back the editor comment, though.
Thanks for this month, Beasties, it has been an interesting one.
Yours sincerely,
C Whitby
ROB
The first thing about the Beastie Boys is that I didn’t really have any preconceptions, apart from writing them off as a novelty hip-hop act (which I guess is a pretty big preconception). But they were so far removed from my musical upbringing they were irrelevant to what I was listening to.
Do I feel like I’ve missed out? Yes and no. The biggest issue I’ve found with the Beastie Boys is that they have an inability to know a good song from a bad song, instead playing the percentages. On ‘… 5 Boroughs’ and ‘Hot Sauce…’ I’ve liked 8 or 9 songs on each, yet remarkably this constitutes only 50% of the output. For most bands, I’d be championing them to the heavens if I liked 8 or 9 songs on their albums, yet here it feels like a missed opportunity.
That said, I’ve actually really enjoyed this month. ‘Paul’s Boutique’ and the two previously discussed albums have absolutely shown me that there’s more to the Beastie Boys than ‘Intergalactic’, ‘Sabotage and ‘Fight For Your Right’. Sure, we got off to a shaky start, not least of all because of some truly awful, stereotypically (for hip-hop, at least) misogynistic lyrics, but there’s incredible scope on the group’s later output, and as they gained some much needed self-awareness the quality of their output, lyrically at least, skyrocketed.
I guess the beauty of this experiment is that it is opening my eyes (and ears) somewhat to the music outside of my closeted little emo scene. Would I have ever listened to the Beastie Boys on my own accord? No. Have I found enjoyment in debating the merits (or otherwise) of ‘The Mix Up’? Absolutely…
JAMIE
So. 8 albums in total, five of which I really, really like. That’s a pretty good return I guess.
To be honest, Beasties were on to a winner from day one. A Bananarama month would have been welcomed by me following the April Youth torturous endurance test which was frankly hellish for me.
Like many of the others, I only knew the hits prior to this. Now, I know them well and would consider myself a fan. I have been listening to certain albums again and again. Some I haven’t. Their debut was shite and 5 Boroughs (AKA The Dullening) bored me to tears.
I personally preferred the albums that the boys played live on. The Mix Master Mike albums bored me.
And that’s that. And now fur The Replacements. Who?
MICKEY
Listening to Check Your Head and Ill Communication I could really see what the hype was about. They started out quite immature and finished their careers being highly accomplished musicians.
I held them in high regard before this month and hold them in the same regard now. I don’t think they are the best rappers in the world. But it’s their music which really carried them the distance. Given that some of their albums were made in the 80s their stuff sounds pretty timeless.
I will prob only listen to Ill Communication and The Mix Up again. But there are tonnes of great tracks here.
Beastie Boys, I salute you. Thank you for the music. Thank you for making it ok for white people to rap. Thank you for taking Mix Master Mike off the streets. Thank you for making an instrumental album that only two people in this groups liked. Thanks x
MARTIN
44%. That’s my score for the Beastie Boys. It seems lower than it should be but who am I to argue with stone cold mathematics.
I think it seems lower because the songs I like are really great. I’ve been compiling a Best Of throughout the month and there’s 33 songs on it. All brilliant. That’s 3 albums worth of great material by most people’s standards. So I really think their inability to edit themselves and their compulsion to fill their albums with unnecessary guff has really affected whether I can really call myself a fan.
To The 5 Boroughs and Hot Sauce Committee Part Two are both brilliant albums, and I’m glad this month has brought them to my ears. I’ll be listening to them for years to come.
But sadly, the other 6 I just can’t call good records. They aren’t. They are fairly poor records with a clutch of brilliant songs scattered amongst them. The hit to miss ratio is far too weighted in the wrong direction. I keep saying that if their albums were shorter I’d have probably enjoyed them more but who really knows? The contrary bastards might just have cut out the songs I like best and kept the filler.
I am glad I’ve investigated them properly though. It turns out that although I already knew a lot of songs I liked, the ones I now like even better are ones I’d not heard until doing this.
So I think my summary is, they seem like a great live band and a bunch of sorted guys who I really want to get behind but the largest proportion of their whole recorded output is pretty dull. But man alive, what a belter of a Best Of collection!
RORY
After a challenging attempt to get Sonic Youth, this month has been exactly what I needed. I’m quite sad it’s over, which is dumb considering I can still access the Beastie Boys on my Spotify. That being said I’ve been dodging payment for a week so I could be cut off at any time.
I’ve gone from blindly liking them, to questioning them, to liking them again. Ill Communication, Paul’s Boutique, The Mix Up and Hot Sauce have been the highlights, to the 5 Boroughs and License to Ill the lowlights.
It’s a shame Hot Sauce is the end as they were hitting a period of late career form.
It’s been a good one.
LUKE
After the rigours of Sonic Youth month, our second Artist In Residence was a much more fun affair. In fact, I’ve used that word so much to describe them in the past four weeks that I’m bored of it. But what word fits better?
I started as a fan of the band and finish as something even more. I’ve found that if I can forgive the amount of filler, self-indulgent instrumental wank-fests and rampant misogyny of their early work and still find as much to love about them as I do, then they must be more than just one of my favourite bands, but one of my favourite things.
I’ve been able to properly assess their career and separate the killer from the filler. Their final two ‘regular’ albums – To The 5 Boroughs and Hot Sauce Committee Part Two are certainly up there with the best. They may even rank more highly than Paul’s Boutique, reliant as it was on the production of the Dust Brothers. The Best Of compilation, or ‘compy’, heaves with classics that I’ll be listening to forever.
The live performances have been a treasure trove. I’ve watched footage of certain songs – So Whatcha Want on Arsenio Hall and Sabotage on David Letterman in particular – more times than I could possibly remember. Then there’s Awesome, I Fucking Shot That, which stands in the pantheon of great concert films, windmilling its cock about and daring you with its eyes to question it. Anyone that’s even half interested in the band should watch it.
They have an energy and easy charisma unmatched by any other bands I’ve ever listened to. There’s a lot to be said for the fact that they spent so much time together and still genuinely looked as if they were enjoying themselves. Even when approaching their late forties they still looked effortlessly cool. They never looked like old men playing a young man’s game because they made you feel as if they were the only ones that knew the rules. This was a band that was built to last, so it’s particularly cruel that they were denied the possibility of a longer career.
As much as I like them, I think the one thing they were missing was a genuine mainstream masterpiece of an album that was all their own work. It was coming. But what we’re left with instead isn’t half bad.
artistinresidence 